
1865-1900 

THE CONFEDERACY 

AND 

THE TRANSVAAL: 

A people's obligation TO 

ROBERT E. LEE 

BY 

CHAKLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN 

ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, AT ITS ANNUAL 

MEETING IN WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30TH, 1901 



t 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

BOSTON 

1901 



1865-1900 

THE CONFEDERACY 

AND 

THE TRANSVAAL: 

A people's obligation TO 

ROBERT E. LEE 

BY 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN 

ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, AT ITS ANNUAL 

MEETING IN WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30TH, 1901 



f 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

BOSTON 

1901 



\ 



A-G1 



^ A". _.;;_':'^r. 




THE CONFEDERACY AND THE 
TRANSVAAL 



The present seems a sufficiently proper occasion, and 
this a not inappropriate place, to call attention to a mat- 
ter sufficiently germane to the purpose of this Society, 
though hardly as yet antiquarian. Historical in its char- 
acter, it conveys a lesson of grave present import. 

One of the most unhappy, and, to those concerned in 
it, disastrous wars since the fall of Napoleon, is, in South 
Africa, now working itself to a close apparently still re- 
mote, and in every way unsatisfactory. There is reason 
to think that the conflict was unnecessary in its inception ; 
that by timely and judicious action it might long since 
have been brought to a close ; and that it now continues 
simply because the parties to it cannot be brought to- 
gether to discuss and arrive at a sensible basis of adjust- 
ment, — a basis upon which both in reality would be not 
unwilling to agree. Nevertheless, as the cable dispatches 
daily show, the contest drags wearily along, to the prob- 
able destruction of one of the combatants, to the great 
loss of the other, and, so far as can be seen, in utter dis- 
regard of the best interests of both. 

My immediate purpose, however, is to draw attention 
to the hair-breadth escape we ourselves had from a simi- 
lar experience, now thirty-six years ago, and to assign to 
whom it belongs the credit for that escape. In one word, 
in the strong light of passing events, I think it now 
opportune to set forth the debt of gratitude this reunited 
country of ours — Union and Confederate, North and 
South — owes to Robert E. Lee, of Virginia. 



Most of those here — for this is not a body of young 
men — remember the state of affairs which existed in the 
United States, especially in what was then known as the 
Confederate States, or the rebellious portion of the United 
States, in April, 1865. Such as are not yet as mature as 
that memory implies, have read and heard thereof. It 
was in every respect almost the identical state of affairs 
which existed in South Africa at the time of the capture 
of Pretoria by General Roberts, in June a year ago. 

On the 2d of April, 1865, the Confederate army found 
itself compelled to abandon the Hues in front of Peters- 
burg ; and the same day — a very famous Sabbath — 
Jefferson Davis, hastily called from the church services he 
was attending, left Richmond to find, if he might, a new 
seat of government, at Danville. The following morning 
our forces at last entered the rebel capital. This was on 
a Monday ; and, two days later, the Confederate Presi- 
dent issued from Danville his manifesto, declaring to the 
people of the South that " We have now entered upon a 
new phase of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity 
of guarding particular points, our army will be free to 
move from point to point, to strike the enemy in detail 
far from his base. If, by the stress of numbers, we 
should be compelled to a temporary withdrawal from her 
limits [Virginia], or those of any other border State, we 
will return until the baffled and exhausted enemy shall 
abandon in despair his endless and impossible task of 
making slaves of a people resolved to be free." The 
poHcy and hne of military action herein indicated were 
precisely those laid down and pm-sued by the Boer leaders 
during the last sixteen months. 

It is unnecessary for me even to refer to the series of 
events which followed our occupation of Richmond, and 
preceded the surrender of Appomattox. It is sufficient 
to say that on the Friday which followed the momentous 
Sunday, the capitulation of the Army of Northern Vir- 



ginia had become inevitable. Not the less for that, the 
course thereafter to be pursued as concerned further 
resistance on the part of the Confederacy was still to be 
decided. As his Danville proclamation showed, Jefferson 
Davis, though face to face with grave disaster, had not 
for an instant given up the thought of continuing the 
struggle. To do so was certainly practicable, — far more 
practicable than now in South Africa, both as respects 
forces in the field and the area of country to be covered 
by the invader. Foreign opinion, for instance, was on 
this point settled ; it was in Europe assumed as a cer- 
tainty of the future that the conquest of the Confederacy 
was " impossible." The English journals had always 
maintained, and still did maintain, that the defeat of Lee 
in the field, or even the surrender of all the Confederate 
armies, would be but the close of one phase of the war 
and the opening of another, — the final phase being a 
long, fruitless effort to subdue a people, at once united 
and resolved, occupying a region so vast that it would 
be impossible to penetrate every portion of it, much less 
to hold it in peaceful subjection. As an historical fact, 
on this point the scales, on the 9th of April, 1865, hung 
wavering in the balance ; a mere turn of the hand would 
decide which way they were to incline. Thus, on the 
morning of that momentous day, it was an absolutely 
open question, an even chance, whether the course which 
subsequently was pursued should be pursued, or whether 
the leaders of the Confederacy would adopt the poHcy 
which President Kruger and Generals Botha and De Wet 
have in South Africa more recently adopted, and are now 
pursuing. 

The decision rested in the hands of one man, the 
commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Fairly 
reliable and very graphic accounts of what took place at 
General Lee's headquarters in the early morning hours of 
April 9th have either appeared in print or been told in 



conversation, and to two of these accounts I propose to 
call attention. Apparently the second of the interviews 
described followed close on the first, not more than a 
couple of hours intervening between them. Of the first, 
I find this account in a book recently published by John 
Sargent Wise, entitled " The End of an Era." John Sar- 
gent Wise is the son of Henry A. Wise, once prominent 
in our national poHtics. Governor of Virginia in the 
later "fifties," the father was subsequently a brigadier-gen- 
eral in the Confederate service. Though in 1865 but a 
youth of nineteen, John S. Wise was a hot Confederate, 
and had already been wounded in battle. At the time 
now in question he chanced to have been sent by Jeffer- 
son Davis, then on his way to Danville, with dispatches 
to Lee ; and while seeking Lee's headquarters he came, 
in the early morning of April 9th, across his father. Gov- 
ernor and General Wise, in bivouac with his brigade. The 
father was then nearly sixty years of age, but the son 
found him wrapped in a blanket, stretched on the ground 
like a common soldier, and asleep among his men. A 
typical Southern " fire-eater " of the extreme type, Henry 
A. Wise was an out-and-out Secessionist and Confederate. 
Aroused from an uneasy slumber, almost the first wish he 
expressed was to see General Lee, and he asked impetu- 
ously of his whereabouts. The son knew where the 
headquarters of the Confederate commander were, and 
the two started together to go to them. John S. Wise 
has described vividly the aspect of affairs as they passed 
along : " The roads and fields were filled with stragglers. 
They moved lookmg behind them, as if they expected to 
be attacked and harried by a pursuing foe. Demoraliza- 
tion, panic, abandonment of all hope, appeared on every 
hand. Wagons were rolling along with<viL any order or 
system. Caissons and limber-chests, without command- 
ing officers, seemed to be floating aimlessly upon a tide 
of disorganization. Rising to his full height, casting a 



glance around him like that of an eagle, and sweeping 
the horizon with his long arm and bony forefinger, my 
father exclaimed : * This is the end ! ' It is impossible 
to convey an idea of the agony and the bitterness of his 
words and gestures." Then follows this description of 
the interview which ensued : — 

" We found General Lee on the rear portico of the 
house that I have mentioned. He had washed his face 
in a tin basin, and stood drying his beard with a coarse 
towel as we approached. * General Lee,' exclaimed my 
father, * my poor, brave men are lying on yonder hill 
more dead than alive. For more than a week they have 
been fighting day and night, without food, and, by God, 
sir, they shall not move another step until somebody 
gives them something to eat ! ' 

" * Come in, general,' said General Lee soothingly. 
' They deserve something to eat, and shall have it ; and 
meanwhile you shall share my breakfast.' He disarmed 
everything like defiance by his kindness. 

" It was but a few moments, however, before my father 
launched forth in a fresh denunciation of the conduct 
of General Bushrod Johnson ^ in the engagement of the 
sixth. I am satisfied that General Lee felt as he did ; 
but, assuming an air of mock severity, he said, * Gen- 
eral, are you aware that you are liable to court-martial 
and execution for insubordination and disrespect toward 
your commanding officer ? ' 

" My father looked at him with lifted eyebrows and 
flashmg eyes, and exclaimed : * Shot ! You can't afford to 
shoot the men who fight for cursing those who ran away. 
Shot ! I wish you would shoot me. If you don't, some 
Yankee probably will within the next twenty-four hours.' 

" Growing more serious. General Lee inquired what he 
thought of the situation. 

1 Elsewhere in his book (pp. 358, 359), and in another connection, J. S. 
Wise is equally severe in his characterization of Bushrod Johnson. 



8 

" ' Situation ? ' said the bold old man. * There is no 
situation! Nothing remains, General Lee, but to put 
your poor men on yom- poor mules and send them home 
in time for spring ploughing. This army is hopelessly 
whipped, and is fast becoming demoralized. These men 
have already endured more than I believed flesh and 
blood could stand, and I say to you, su-, emphatically, that 
to prolong the struggle is murder, and the blood of every 
man who is killed from this time forth is on your head. 
General Lee.' 

" This last expression seemed to cause General Lee 
great pain. With a gesture of remonstrance, and even 
of impatience, he protested : ' Oh, general, do not talk 
so wildly. My burdens are heavy enough. What would 
the country think of me, if I did what you suggest ? ' 

" ' Country be d d ! ' was the quick reply. ' There 

is no country. There has been no country, general, for a 
year or more. You are the country to these men. They 
have fought for you. They have shivered through a 
long winter for you. Without pay or clothes, or care of 
any sort, their devotion to you and faith in you have 
been the only things which have held this army together. 
If you demand the sacrifice, there are still left thousands 
of us who will die for you. You know the game is des- 
perate beyond redemption, and that, if you so announce, 
no man or government or people will gainsay youi- 
decision. That is why I repeat that the blood of any 
man killed hereafter is upon your head.' 

" General Lee stood for some time at an open window, 
looking out at the throng now surging upon the roads 
and in the fields, and made no response." ^ 

It will be remembered that John Sargent Wise was 
individually present at this conversation, a youth of nine- 
teen. I have as little respect as any one well can have 
for the recollection of thirty years since as a basis of 

» The End of an Era, pp. 433-435. 



9 

history. Nevertheless, it would seem quite out of the 
question that a youth of only nineteen could have been 
present at such a scene as is here described, and that 
the words which then passed, and the incidents which 
occurred, should not have been indelibly imprinted upon 
his memory. I am disposed, therefore, to consider this 
reliable historical material. Meanwhile, it so chances 
that I am able to supplement it by similar testimony from 
another quarter. 

Some years ago I was, for a considerable period, closely 
associated with General E. P. Alexander, who, in its time, 
had been Chief of Artillery in Longstreet's famous corps ; 
and it was General Alexander who, on the morning of 
July 3, 1863, opened on the Union line at Gettysburg 
what Hancock described as " a most terrific and appalling 
cannonade," intended to prepare the way for the advance 
of Pickett's division. In April, 1865, General Alexander 
was, if my recollection serves me right, in command of 
the artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia. General 
Alexander's memory I found always singularly tenacious 
as well as accurate, and he delighted in reminiscence of 
the great war ; so he many times repeated to me, or to 
others in my hearing, the details of an interview he had 
with Lee on the morning of the 9th of April, not long, 
it would seem, after Wise had left him. Of what he said, 
I have since retained a vivid recollection. 

On the morning in question, General Alexander had 
occasion to report to Lee. He realized that the Army 
of Northern Virginia was then in a desperate situation. 
Moreover, as he well knew, the limber-chests were running 
low ; his arm of the service was in no condition to go 
into another engagement. Yet the idea of an abandon- 
ment of the cause had never occurred to him as among 
the probabilities. All night he had lain awake, thinking 
as to what was next to be done. Finally he had come to 
the conclusion that there was but one course to pursue. 



10 

The Confederate army, while nominally capitulating, must 
in reality disperse, and those composing it should be in- 
structed, whether individually or as part of detachments, 
to get each man to his own State in the most direct way 
and shortest possible time, and report to the governor 
thereof, with a view to a further and continuous resistance. 
Thus, exactly what is now taking place in South Africa 
was to take place in the Confederacy. General Alexander 
told me that, as he passed his batteries on his way to 
headquarters, the men called out to him, in cheery tones, 
that there were still some rounds remaining in the caissons, 
and that they were ready to renew the fight. He found 
Lee seated on the trunk of a fallen tree before a dying 
campfire. He was dressed in uniform, and invited Alex- 
ander to take a seat beside him. He then asked his 
opinion of the situation, and of the course proper to be 
pursued. Full of the idea which dominated his mind, 
Alexander proceeded at once to propound his plan, for 
it seemed to him the only plan worthy of consideration. 
As he went on, General Lee, looking steadily into the 
fire with an abstracted air, listened patiently. Alexander 
said his full say. A brief pause ensued, which Lee finally 
broke in somewhat these words : " No ! General Alexan- 
der, that will not do. You must remember we are a Chris- 
tian people. We have fought this fight as long as, and 
as well as, we knew how. We have been defeated. For 
us, as a Christian people, there is now but one course to 
pursue. We must accept the situation ; these men must 
go home and plant a crop, and we must proceed to build 
up our country on a new basis. We cannot have recourse 
to the methods you suggest." I remember being deeply 
impressed with Alexander's comment, as he repeated these 
words of Lee. They had evidently burned themselves 
into his memory. He said : " I had nothing more to say. 
I felt that the man had soared way up above me, — he 
dominated me completely. I rose from beside him; 



11 

silently mounted my horse ; rode back to my command ; 
and waited for the order to surrender." 

Then and there, Lee decided its course for the Confed- 
eracy. And I take it there is not one solitary man in the 
United States to-day, North or South, who does not feel 
that he decided right. 

The Army of Northern Virginia, it will be remembered, 
laid down its arms on the 9th of April. But General 
Joseph Johnston was in command of another Confederate 
army then confronting Sherman, in North Carolina, and 
it was still an open question what course he would pursue. 
His force numbered over 40,000 combatants ; more than 
the entire muster of the Boers in their best estate. Lee's 
course decided Johnston's. S. R. Mallory, who was pre- 
sent on the occasion, has left a striking account of a 
species of council held at Greensboro, North Carolina, on 
the evening of the 10th of April, by Jefferson Davis and 
the members of his cabinet, with General Johnston. 
Davis, stubborn in temper and bent on a pohcy of contin- 
uous irregular resistance, expressed the belief that the 
disasters recently sustained, though " terrible," should not 
be regarded as " fatal." " I think," he added, " we can 
whip the enemy yet, if our people will turn out." When 
he ceased speaking, a pause ensued. Davis at last said, 
" We should like to hear your views. General Johnston." 
Whereupon Johnston, without preface or introduction, 
and with a tone and manner almost spiteful, remarked in 
his terse, concise, demonstrative way, as if seeking to con- 
dense thoughts that were crowding for utterance: "My 
views are, sir, that our people are tired of the war, feel 
themselves whipped, and will not fight." ^ 

We all know what followed. Lee's great military pres- 
tige and moral ascendancy made it easy for some of the 
remaining Confederate commanders — Hke Johnston — 
to follow the precedent he set ; while others of them — 

^ Alfriend's Life of Jefferson Davis, pp. 622-626. 



12 

like Kirby Smith — found it imposed upon them. A 
fii-m direction had been given to the coiu'se of events ; an 
intelHgible pohcy was indicated. I have in my possession 
a copy of the " Index," the weekly journal pubhshed in 
London during our Civil War. The official organ of the 
Confederate agents in Europe, it was intended for the 
better enlightenment of foreign opinion, more especially 
the English press. The surrender of Lee was commented 
upon editorially in the issue of that paper for April 27th. 
" The war is far from concluded," it declared. " A stren- 
uous resistance and not surrender was the unalterable 
determination of the Confederate authorities . . . and if 
the worst comes to the worst there is the trans-Mississippi 
department, where the remnant of [Johnston's] army can 
find a shelter, and a new and safe starting-point." On 
the 11th of May following, the surrender of Johnston's 
army was announced on the same terms as that of Lee ; 
but, in summing up the situation, the " Index " still 
found " the elements of a successful or at least a protracted 
resistance." On the 25th of May, it had an article 
entitled " Southern Resistance in Texas," in which it an- 
nounced that, " Such a war will be fierce, ferocious, and 
of long duration," — in a word, such an expiring struggle 
as we are to-day witnessing in South Africa. In its issue 
of June 1st the "Index" commented on "The capture of 
President Davis ; " and then, and not until then, fore- 
stalhng the trans-Mississippi surrender of Kirby Smith, 
brought to it by the following mail, it raised the waihng 
cry, " Fuit Ilium. . . . The South has fallen." 

Comparing the situation which then existed in the 
Confederacy with that now in South Africa, it must also 
be remembered that General Lee assumed the responsibil- 
ity he did assume, and decided the policy to be pursued 
in the way it was decided, under no ameliorating condi- 
tions. Politically, unconditional surrender was insisted 
upon ; and Lee's surrender was, politically, unconditional. 



13 

Even more so was Johnston's ; for, in Johnston's case, 
the modifying terms of capitulation agreed on in the first 
place between him and Sherman were roughly disallowed 
at Washington, and the truce, by an order coming thence, 
abruptly terminated. Then Johnston did what Lee had 
already done ; ignoring Davis, he surrendered his army. 

In the case of the Confederacy, also, an absolutely 
unconditional political surrender implied much. The 
Emancipation Proclamation of January, 1863, which con- 
fiscated the most valuable chattel property of the Con- 
federacy, remained the irreversible law of the land. The 
inhabitants of the South were, moreover, as one man dis- 
franchised. When they laid down their arms they had 
before them, first, a military government, and, after that, 
the supremacy of their former slaves. A harder fate for 
a proud people to accept could not well be imagined. 
The bitterness of feeling, the hatred, was, too, extreme. 
It may possibly be argued that the conditions in this 
country then were different from those now in South 
Africa, inasmuch as here it was a civil war, a conflict be- 
tween communities of the same race and speech, involv- 
ing the vital question of the supremacy of law. This 
argument, however, seems to imply that, in case of strife 
of this description, a general severity may fairly be re- 
sorted to in excess of that permissible between nations, 
— in other words, that we are justified in treating our 
brethren with greater harshness than we would treat 
aliens in blood and speech. Obviously, this is a ques- 
tionable contention. 

It might possibly also be claimed that the bitterness of 
civil war is not so insurmountable as that of one involv- 
ing a question of race dominance. Yet it is difficult to 
conceive bitterness of greater intensity than existed be- 
tween the sections at the close of our Civil War. There 
is striking evidence of this in the book of Mr. Wise, 
from which I have already quoted. Toward its close he 



14 

speaks of the death of Lincoln. He then adds the fol- 
lowing : — 

" Perhaps I ought to chronicle that the announcement 
was received with demonstrations of sorrow. If I did, 
I should be lying for sentiment's sake. Among the 
higher officers and the most intelligent and conservative 
men, the assassination caused a shudder of horror at the 
heinousness of the act, and at the thought of its possible 
consequences ; but among the thoughtless, the desperate, 
and the ignorant, it was hailed as a sort of retributive 
justice. In maturer years I have been ashamed of what 
I felt and said when I heard of that awful calamity. 
However, men ought to be judged for their feelings and 
their speech by the circumstances of their surroundings. 
For four years we had been fighting. In that struggle, 
all we loved had been lost. Lincoln incarnated to us the 
idea of oppression and conquest. We had seen his face 
over the coffins of our brothers and relatives and friends, 
in the flames of Richmond, in the disaster at Appo- 
mattox. In blood and flame and torture the temples of 
our lives were tumbling about our heads. We were des- 
perate and vindictive, and whosoever denies it forgets or 
is false. We greeted his death in a spirit of reckless 
hate, and hailed it as bringing agony and bitterness to 
those who were the cause of our own agony and bitter- 
ness. To us, Lincoln was an inhuman monster, Grant a 
butcher, and Sherman a fiend." 

Indeed, recalling the circumstances of that time, it is 
fairly appalling to consider what in 1865 must have 
occurred, had Robert E. Lee then been of the same turn 
of mind as was Jefferson Davis, or as implacable and 
unyielding in disposition as Kruger or Botha have more 
recently proved. The national government had in arms 
a million men, inured to the hardships and accustomed 
to the brutalities of war; Lincoln had been freshly 
assassinated ; the temper of the North was thoroughly 



15 

aroused, while its patience was exhausted. An irregular 
warfare would inevitably have resulted, a warfare without 
quarter. The Confederacy would have been reduced to 
a smouldering wilderness, — to what South Africa to-day 
is. In such a death grapple, the North, both in morale 
and in means, would have suffered only less than the 
South. From both sections that fate was averted. 

It is not my purpose to enter into any criticism of 
the course of events in South Africa, or of the policy 
there on either side pursued. It will be for the future to 
decide whether the prolonged, irregular resistance we are 
witnessing is justifiable, or, if justifiable, whether it is 
wise. Neither of these questions do I propose to discuss. 
My purpose simply is to call attention, in view of what 
is now taking place elsewhere, to the narrow escape we 
ourselves, thirty-six years ago, had from a similar awful 
catastrophe. And I again say that, as we look to-day 
upon Kruger and Botha and De Wet, and the situation 
existing in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, I 
doubt if one single man in the United States, North or 
South, — whether he participated in the Civil War or was 
born since that war ended, — would fail to acknowledge 
an infinite debt of gratitude to the Confederate leader, 
who on the 9th of April, 1865, decided, as he did decide, 
that the United States, whether Confederate or Union, 
was a Christian community, and that his duty was to 
accept the responsibility which the fate of war had im- 
posed upon him, — to decide in favor of a new national 
life, even if slowly and painfully to be built up by his 
own people under conditions arbitrarily and by force 
imposed on them. 

In one of the Confederate accounts of the great war ^ 
is to be found the following description of Lee's return 
to his Richmond home immediately after he had at Ap- 
pomattox sealed the fate of the Confederacy. With it 

1 De Leon, Four Years in Rebel Capitals, p. 367. 



16 

I will conclude this paper. On the afternoon of the 
previous day, the first of those paroled from the surren- 
dered Army of Northern Virgina had straggled back to 
Richmond. The writer thus goes on : " Next morning a 
small group of horsemen appeared on the further side 
of the pontoons. By some strange intuition it was 
known that General Lee was among them, and a crowd 
collected all along the route he would take, silent and 
bareheaded. There was no excitement, no hurrahing ; 
but as the great chief passed, a deep, loving murmur, 
greater than these, rose from the very hearts of the crowd. 
Taking off his hat and simply bowing his head, the man 
great in adversity passed silently to his own door ; it 
closed upon him, and his people had seen him for the 
last time in his battle harness." 



17 



After preparing the foregoing paper, I wrote to Gen- 
eral Alexander asking him to verify my recollection of 
the account of what passed at his meeting with General 
Lee, at Appomattox. His reply did not reach me in time 
for the meeting of the American Antiquarian Society, at 
which the paper was read. In his answer to my letter 
he wrote in part as follows : " I am greatly interested in 
what you wish, having often thought and spoken of the 
contrast between Lee's views of the duty of the leaders 
of a people, and those held at the time by President 
Davis, and now held by Kruger and the Boer leaders ; and 
I have written of it, too, in my own war recollections, 
which I am writing out for my children. 

" Essentially, your recollections are entirely correct : 
though some of the details are not exact. Two days be- 
fore I had talked with General Lee over his map, and 
noted Appomattox Court-house as the ^ danger point.' 
When I came up on the 9th to where he had halted on 
the road, he called me to him, and began by referring to 
previous talk, and then he asked me, ' What shall we do 
to-day ? ' For an account of our conversation I will cut 
out of a scrap-book two pages which contain a clipping 
from the * Philadelphia Press ' of a letter I wrote twenty 
years ago." 

The clipping referred to was from an issue of the 
" Press " of July, 188 L The narrative contained in it 
is, of course, now not easily accessible ; but it is of such 
interest and obvious historical value, as throwing light on 
what was passing in Lee's mind at one of the most criti- 
cal moments in the national history, that I here reproduce 
it in full : — 

" The morning of the 9th of April, 1865, found the 



18 

Confederate army in a position in which its inevitable 
fate was apparent to every man in it. The skirmishing 
which had begun in its front as its advance guard reached 
Appomattox Court-house the night before had developed 
into a sharp fight, in which the continuous firing of the 
artillery and the steady increase of the musketry told to 
all that a heavy force had been thrown across our line of 
march, and that reinforcements to it were steadily arriv- 
ing. The long trains of wagons and artillery were at 
first halted in the road and then parked in the adjoining 
fields, allowing the rear of the colrnnn to close up and 
additional troops to pass to the front to reinforce the 
advanced guard and to form a reserve fine of battle in 
their rear, under cover of which they might retire when 
necessary. While these dispositions were taking place, 
General Lee, who had dismounted and was standing near 
a fire on a hill about two miles from the Court-house, 
called the writer to him, and, inviting him to a seat on a 
log near by, referred to the situation and asked : ' What 
shall we do this morning ? ' Although this opportunity 
of expressing my views was unexpected, the situation 
itself was not, for two days before, while near Farmville, 
in a consultation with General Lee over his map, the fact 
of the enemy's having the shortest road to the Appomat- 
tox Coui't-house had been noted and the probability of 
serious difficulty there anticipated, and in the mean time 
there had been ample opportunity for reflection on all of 
the emergencies that might arise. Without replying 
directly to the question, however, I answered first that it 
was due to my command (of artillery) that I should tell him 
that they were in as good spirits, though short of ammu- 
nition and with poor teams, as they had ever been, and 
had begged, if it came to a surrender, to be allowed to 
expend first every round of ammunition on the enemy 
and surrender only the empty ammunition chests. To 
this General Lee replied that there were remaining only 



19 

two divisions of infantry sufficiently well organized and 
strong to be fully relied upon (Field's and Mahone's), and 
that they did not number eight thousand muskets together ; 
and that that force was not sufficient to warrant him in 
undertaking a pitched battle. ^ Then/ I answered, ^ gen- 
eral, there are but two alternatives, to surrender or to 
order the army to abandon its trains and disperse in the 
woods and bushes, every man for himself, and each to 
make his best way, with his arms, either to the army of 
General Johnston, in North Carolina, or home to the 
governor of his State. We have all foreseen the prob- 
abiHty of such an alternative for two days, and I am sure 
I speak the sentiments of many others besides my own in 
urging that rather than surrender the army you should 
allow us to disperse in the woods and go, every man for 
himself.' 

i< i "VVhat would you hope to accompHsh by this ? ' 
" I answered : ' If there is any hope at all for the 
Confederacy or for the separate States to make terms 
with the United States or for any foreign assistance, this 
course stands the chances, whatever they may be; while if 
this army surrenders this morning, the Confederacy is dead 
from that moment. Grant will turn 150,000 fresh men 
against Johnston, and with the moral effect of our sur- 
render he will go, and Dick Taylor and Kirby Smith will 
have to follow like a row of bricks, while if we all take 
to dispersing in the woods, we inaugurate a new phase of 
the war, which may be indefinitely prolonged, and it will 
at least have great moral effect in showing that in our 
pledges to fight it out to the last we meant what we said. 
And even, general, if there is no hope at all in this 
course or in any other, and if the fate of the Confederacy 
is sealed whatever we do, there is one other consideration 
which your soldiers have a right to urge on you, and that 
is your own military reputation, in which every man in 
this army, officer or private, feels the utmost personal 



20 

pride and has a personal property that his children will 
prize after him. The Yankees brought Grant here from 
the West, after the failure of all their other generals, as 
one who had whipped everybody he had ever fought 
against, and they call him " Unconditional Surrender " 
Grant, and have been bragging in advance that you 
would have to surrender too. Now, general, I think you 
ought to spare us all the mortification of having you to 
ask Grant for terms, and have him answer that he had no 
terms to offer you.' 

" I still remember most vividly the emotion with which 
I made this appeal, increasing as I went on, until my 
whole heart was in it; and it seemed to me at the mo- 
ment one which no soldier could resist and against which 
no consideration whatever could be urged ; and when I 
closed, after urging my suggestions at greater length 
than it is necessary to repeat, looking him in the face and 
speaking with more boldness than I usually found in his 
presence, I had not a doubt that he must adopt some such 
course as I had urged. 

" He heard me entirely through, however, very calmly, 
and then asked : ^ How many men do you estimate would 
escape if I were to order the army to disperse ? ' 

" I replied : ' I suppose two thirds of us could get 
away, for the enemy could not disperse to follow us 
through the woods.' 

" He said : ^ We have here only about sixteen thou- 
sand men with arms, and not all of those who could get 
away would join General Johnston, but most of them 
would try and make their way to their homes and fami- 
lies, and their numbers would be too small to be of any 
material service either to General Johnston or to the 
governors of the States. I recognize fully that the sur- 
render of this army is the end of the Confederacy, but 
no course we can take can prevent or even delay that 
result. I have never believed that we would receive 



21 

foreign assistance or get our liberty otherwise than by 
our own arms. The end is now upon us, and it only 
remains to decide how we shall close the struggle. But 
in deciding this question we are to approach it not only 
as soldiers but as Christian men, deciding on matters 
which involve a great deal else besides their own feel- 
ings. If I should order this army to disperse, the men 
with their arms, but without organization or control, and 
without provisions or money, would soon be wandering 
through every State in the Confederacy, some seeking to 
get to their homes and some with no homes to go to. 
Many would be compelled to rob and plunder as they 
went to save themselves from starvation, and the enemy's 
cavalry would pursue in small detachments, particularly 
in efforts to catch the general officers, and raid and burn 
over large districts which they will otherwise never reach, 
and the result would be the inauguration of lawlessness 
and terror and of organized bands of robbers all over the 
South. Now, as Christian men, we have not the right 
to bring this state of affairs upon the country, whatever 
the sacrifice of personal pride involved. And as for 
myself, you young men might go to bushwhacking, but 
I am too old ; and even if it were right for me to disperse 
the army, I should surrender myself to General Grant as 
the only proper course for one of my years and position. 
But I am glad to be able to tell you one thing for your 
comfort : General Grant will not demand an uncondi- 
tional surrender, but offers us most liberal terms — the 
paroling of the whole army not to fight until exchanged.' 
He then went on to speak of the probable details of the 
terms of surrender, and to say that about 10 a. m. he 
was to meet General Grant in the rear of the army and 
would then accept the terms offered. 

" Sanguine as I had been when he commenced that 
' he must acquiesce in my views,' I had not one word to 
reply when he had finished. He spoke slowly and dehb- 



22 

erately and with some feeling; and the completeness of 
the considerations he advanced, and which he dwelt upon 
with more detail than I can now fully recall, speaking 
particularly of the women and children, as the greatest 
sufferers in the state of anarchy which a dispersion of 
the army would bring about, and his reference to what 
would be his personal course if he did order such disper- 
sion, all indicated that the question was not then pre- 
sented to his mind for the first time. 

" A short time after this conversation General Lee 
rode to the rear of the army to meet General Grant and 
arrange the details of the surrender. He had started 
about a half hour when General Fitz Lee sent word to 
General Longstreet that he had broken through a portion 
of the enemy's line, and that the whole army might make 
its way through. General Longstreet, on learning this, 
directed Colonel Haskell of the artillery,^ who was very 
finely mounted, to ride after General Lee at utmost 
speed, killing his horse, if necessary, and recall him 
before he could reach General Grant. Colonel Haskell 
rode as directed, and a short distance in rear of the army 
found General Lee and some of his staff dismounted 
by the roadside. As he with difficulty checked his 
horse. General Lee came up quickly, asking what was 
the matter, but, without waiting for a reply, said : * Oh ! 
I 'm afraid you have killed your beautiful mare. What 
did you ride her so hard for?' On hearing General 
Longstreet's message, he asked some questions about the 
situation, and sent word to General Longstreet to use his 

^ Colonel J. B. Haskell, of South Carolina; " a born and a resourceful 
artilleryman, [who] knew no such thing as fear." General Longstreet 
evidently used General Alexander's paper in the Philadelphia Press in pre- 
paring the account, contained in his Afanassas to Appomattox, of what 
occurred on the day of Lee's surrender. A further reference to Colonel 
Haskell may be found in Wise's The End of an Era (p. 360). Longstreet 
says that, at Appomattox, " there were * surrendered or paroled ' 28,356 
officers and men." A week previous to the capitulation, Lee's and John- 
ston's combined forces numbered considerably over 100,000 combatants. 



23 

own discretion in making any movements; but he did 
not himself return, and in a short while another message 
was received that the success of the cavalry under Gen- 
eral Fitz Lee was but temporary, and that there was no 
such gap in the enemy's hne as had been supposed. 
Soon afterward a message was brought from the enemy's 
picket that General Grant had passed around to the 
front and would meet General Lee at Appomattox Court- 
house, and General Lee accordingly returned. 

" Meanwhile, as the Confederate hne under General 
Gordon was slowly falling back from Appomattox Court- 
house after as gallant a fight against overwhelming odds 
as it had ever made, capturing and bringing safely off 
with it an entire battery of the enemy's. General Custer, 
commanding a division of Federal cavalry, rode forward 
with a flag of truce, and, the firing having ceased on 
both sides, was conducted to General Longstreet as com- 
manding temporarily in General Lee's absence. Custer 
demanded the surrender of the army to himself and Gen- 
eral Sheridan, to which General Longstreet replied that 
General Lee was in communication with General Grant 
upon that subject, and that the issue would be deter- 
mined between them. Custer replied that he and Sheri- 
dan were independent of Grant, and unless the surrender 
was made to them they would * pitch in ' at once. Long- 
street's answer was a peremptory order [to Custer] at 
once [to return] to his own lines, and ^ try it if he liked.' 
Custer was accordingly escorted back, but fire was not 
reopened, and both fines remained halted, the Confeder- 
ate about a half mile east of the Court-house. 

" General Lee, returning from the rear shortly after- 
ward, halted in a small field adjoining Sweeney's house, 
a little in rear of his skirmish line, and, seated on some 
rails under an apple-tree, awaited a message from General 
Grant. This apple-tree was not only entu'ely cut up for 
mementos within two days afterward, but its very roots 



24 

were dug up and carried away under the false impression 
that the surrender took place under it.^ 

" About noon a Federal staff officer rode up and an- 
nounced that General Grant was at the Court-house, and 
General Lee with one of his staff accompanied him back. 
As he left the apple-tree General Longstreet's last words 
were : * Unless he offers you liberal terms, general, let us 
fight it out.' 

" It would be a difficult task to convey to one who 
was not present an idea of the feeling of the Confeder- 
ate army during the few hours which so suddenly, and 
so unexpectedly to it, terminated its existence, and with 
it all hopes of the Confederacy. Having been sharply 
engaged that very morning, and its movements arrested 
by the flag of truce, while one portion of it was actually 
fighting and nearly all the rest, infantry and artillery, 
had just been formed in line of battle in sight and range 
of the enemy, and with guns unhmbered, it was impos- 
sible to realize fully that the war, with all its hopes, 
its ambitions, and its hardships, was thus ended. There 
was comparatively very little conversation, and men stood 
in groups looking over the scene ; but the groups were 
unusually silent. It was not at first generally known 
that a surrender was inevitable, but there was a remark- 
able pre-acquiescence in whatever General Lee should 
determine, and the warmest expressions of confidence in 
his judgment. Ranks and discipline were maintained as 
usual, and there is httle doubt that, had General Lee 
decided to fight that afternoon, the troops would not 
have disappointed him. About 4 p. m. he returned from 

^ The surrender took place in the house of a Mr. McLean, a gentleman 
who, by a strange coincidence, owned a farm on Bull Run at the beginning 
of the war. General Beauregard's headquarters were at McLean's house, 
just in the rear of Blackburn's fort, during the first battle fought by the 
army, July 18, 1861. McLean moved from Bull Kun to get himself out 
of the theatre of war. The last battle took place on his new farm and the 
surrender in his new residence. 



25 

the Com't-house, and, after informing the principal officers 
of the terms of the surrender, started to ride back to his 
camp. 

" The universal desire to express to him the unabated 
love and confidence of the army had led to the formation 
of the gunners of a few battalions of artillery along the 
roadside, with orders to take off their hats in silence as 
he rode by. When he approached, however, the men 
could not be restrained, but burst into the wildest cheer- 
ing, which the adjacent infantry lines took up ; and, 
breaking ranks, they all crowded around him, cheering 
at the tops of their voices. General Lee stopped his 
horse and, after gaining silence, made the only speech 
to his men that he ever made. He was very brief, and 
gave no excuses or apologies for his surrender, but said 
he had done all in his power for his men, and urged 
them to go as quickly and quietly to their homes as pos- 
sible, to resume peaceful avocations, and to be as good 
citizens as they had been soldiers ; and this advice marked 
the course which he himself pursued so faithfully to the 
end." 
Boston, November 6, 1901. 



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